Make money online selling handmade stuff with Etsy.com
If you are one of those rare persons that were born with the marvelous gift of manual skills, be happy because you can make your way up to become a successful internet seller thanks to Etsy.com
Etsy is a nice marketplace where crafts(wo)man can sell their stuff online. The only thing that can be sell in Etsy are handmade items and they offer a wide range of categories where you can list you stuff covering Candles, Clothings, Ceramic, Stuff for Pets, Paper Goods, Toys, Wood working and many others.
So, what exactly do you get as a seller? This list of features cover the most important features:
- You can open your online shop in minutes and you will have to pay 20 cents for every item you list. Etsy takes a 3.5% cut of every sale you make.
- You get an online shop that can be accessed through http://yourusername.etsy.com. You can customize your shop with your logo and a message for your clients.
- You don’t have to take care about anything different than making your stuff to sell. Etsy will handle all the security and maintenance issues for you.
- You can list as many items as you want, showing a maximum of 4 pics per item.
- Given that nothing listed on Etsy is mass-produced, you can show in every shop how many items you have in stock.
- You can disclose where you are located and what materials compose every item.
- There’s a karma system where your clients can recommend you giving positive votes (they can give you negatives ones too).
- Etsy will handle all the payments instead of you. Your shop will be able to accept Paypal and all the major credit cards.
If you have read this blog for a while you surely know I have talked about Cafepress in a couple of posts. Etsy is a very similar service but with the differences that a) you don’t pay a base price for your products and b) you manage your stock and will be in charge of sending every package.
Good or what?
Good, although a little expensive if you consider the prices you can ask for handmade items (sometimes as low as $5 or $10).
If you want to know more about Etsy visit their blog.
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April 14th, 2007 at 1:46 am
Nice info.. Thx for sharing..
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April 14th, 2007 at 6:55 am
First time I see this service, will check it out.
April 14th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I wanted to correct one idea in your post. Etsy makes it possible to link to your Paypal account but it does not handle customer payments. Many etsy sellers use Paypal. Others will take checks, money orders or send an invoice through Google Checkout. Each shop will list how they expect to be paid.
April 14th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
@Daniel: It’s not a well-known service, but it has been around for a while (it was featured by Mike Arrington in Techcrunch too).
@Kathy: That’s a good clarification. Thanks a lot!
April 20th, 2007 at 9:04 am
First time I ever hear about this site, I will check it out, it seems interesting… Nice post, thank you.